Outside the framework of our rational consciousness exist a dimension the Sufis call the heart of knowing. We will explore the means by which we can access this evolutionary inheritance, of an intelligent universe.

$ 15.00 donation – Pre-registration requested.
To organize material for the seminar, we would appreciate a call to confirm your participation. 206 363 5803 or email wajid.gallien@gmail.com Leave a message with your name and the date of the seminar.

This week I will be resigning from my role as Webmaster of the SOI-Seattle Kinship and Inayati Order-Seattle websites. I will also be taking down the Kinship site, as it is not being being used by the community in the way I had hoped. I have learned a lot over the past 4-1/2 years of creating/co-creating, and caring for these sites, and I hope they have been helpful to you in your Journeys. Hafizullah Chisti will be serving as Interim Webmaster and may be reached via the Contact menu tab or link on the Inayati Order-Seattle site.

If you are somewhat tech/web-savvy and would be interested in serving as Webmaster of the Inayati Order website, please send a note to that effect via the Contact link at soi-seattle.org.

Part 3 – Directions for the Labyrinth of Mind.
Saturday, February 17th

Part 4 – Interpreting the given signs.
Saturday, March 3rd

Outside the frame work of our rational consciousness exist a dimension the Sufis call the heart of knowing. We will explore the means by which we can access this evolutionary inheritance, of an intelligent universe.
$ 15.00 donation – Pre-registration requested.
To organize material for the seminar, we would appreciate a call to confirm your participation. 206 363 5803 or email wajid.gallien@gmail.com Leave a message with your name and the date of the seminar.

Please join me in participating in two important surveys created by the Mureeds and Centers Committee of the Sufi Order International – North America.

From the Committee: ‘We encourage broad participation in this survey by all friends of the SOINA and friends of the Abode of the Message, regardless of whether or or not you are a mureed or what continent you reside on. Thank you!

The deadline for participating in both surveys (#1 and #2) is midnight (Eastern) on Sunday (August 23).

The survey should take about 6-8 minutes. Please be sure to click on
“Submit” on the final page, or your responses will not be saved. A second
short survey will be distributed in one week.

Before filling out this survey, we ask that you take a few conscious
breaths or do some other practice that will enable your answers to come
from your heart.

We hope that most of you will participate and that these surveys will part
of a broader sacred dialog on our future. We need your insights and energy
so that together we can realize our full potential to spread the Message of
Unity and promote the awakening of humanity to the divinity in all.’

Please be certain to fill out both surveys by clicking or pasting the URLs into your browsers.

Shame comes at us from many different directions — families of origin, the guilt-tripping religious world, the competitive marketplace, the collective consciousness itself. I know of very few people who move through the world with a healthy sense of self, with a real appreciation for their divinity and inherent magnificence.

And the spiritual bypass movement just makes things worse for those who are seeking answers, bashing the ego in its entirety, repressing the shadow in the name of a version of enlightenment that is more self-avoidant than expansive, and even characterizing the body as spiritually sub-standard, as though the divine made a mistake putting us in human form.

This cycle is often perpetuated by the artificial-forgiveness community, who diminish those who dare to work on their unresolved feelings by telling them that their feelings are an illusion, their experiences are mischaracterized, their stories tiresome. Just jump out of your process and forgive your wrongdoers — put their process ahead of even your own.

Levels and levels of madness, that leave spiritual seekers entirely confused about the value of healing the “pain body” and elevating the self-concept. Let’s get this straight — Shame is not an illusion. Self-loathing is not an illusion. Our stories are not illusions. Abuse and neglect are not illusions. And the need to heal our hearts and elevate our self-concepts is essential to healthy functioning. Pretending things aren’t real doesn’t make them go away. Facing them does.

I believe that the stories are illusions, from the perspective of that of us which is self-subsisting — but the wounding certainly is not illusory, and everyone’s wounding deserves to be respected and held in compassion, even while we confront and deconstruct the community collusion to avoid getting real about its power.

That we armor and protect ourselves in this society is not news to anyone reading this. And we also treasure those times when we feel that our emotions and expression are fully received, unconditionally respected, and ‘held’ — partly because those experiences are so very rare.

Research has shown that the more we can live in a relatively undefended state, our whole life is benefited, our physical health as well as our relationships. But it sometimes takes great courage and self-confidence to ‘de-squam’ (Pir Vilayat’s term) ourselves of the contrivances of defense.

I think the sensation of being “vulnerable” and therefore on tenuous ground stems from a time in our life — early childhood, when we were first getting the hang of embodiment. We really were dependent upon those around us — our caregivers and teachers — to clearly mirror our awesomesauce back to us so that we could fully own it. They either didn’t see it, or they judged it, or they tried to make it into something else. So we carry the wounds of that, of being not-seen or of being seen in a distorted or hurtful way.

The spiritual and psychological reality is that as adults it doesn’t matter at all how we are seen by others, and even if we make a self-disclosure that is somehow judged or misused by another, it won’t result in actual damage to us. But to the extent that we are living a re-echo of that truly vulnerable time in the past, we might buy into a demeaning or belittling image of ourselves and become very contracted and reactive around it.

So it is incumbent upon us to be aware of those tender places in ourselves and in each other, and to treat our defenses with a certain degree of respect. Our defenses were once a solution to a problem, and we won’t give them up until we see ourselves differently.

Spiritual community is a crucible; no one’s ego is their private property — though in any social gathering, the social contract includes a subtle collusion to avoid exposing member’ wounds. But it’s a proper function of spiritual community to expose everyone’s uncooked places to themselves.

Having said that, we do not need to do anything intentional or explicit to make that happen. It does that by itself, and is not personal. It is NOT truly compassionate to expose another’s tender place without their explicit permission, like, you are their therapist. It is an *attack* to call someone down on their defense; it puts you one-up and just makes the other person more defended.

But at the same time, where there is an atmosphere of acceptance, we can begin to experiment with being more permeable to each other and to take some risks with being more open and self-disclosing. The more unconditional acceptance abides in the presence in the space, the easier this can be, to the point that we really can just unzip our egos and step out of them.

That doesn’t mean that the old wounds will not surface — just the opposite, in fact — it means that you’re actually ready to engage those wounds in a way that they can be healed and that a certain developmental process that was stalled in childhood gets restarted.

Therefore the best way of doing the work is to do all we can, do it thoroughly, do it wholeheartedly, and do it quietly. H.I.K

“The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspect of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance.” C.G. Jung

“I had terribly strong attachment to my personal history. My family roots were deep. I honestly felt that without them my life had no continuity or purpose. . . . I don’t have personal history anymore. . . . I dropped it one day when it was no longer necessary.” Don Juan

Centering.

Ours is the way of the lover. Love is a discipline of the heart, the same way metaphysics is a discipline of the mind. Love refines the emotions. When doing a practice when we touch on the archetype, what we discover is love. The process of reaching the archetype is an act of surrender. The doer and the doing cannot co-exist, in the end only the archetype prevails, and the archetype is one of the facets of the jewel of love.

We wonder why it is so difficult to “breakthrough”. What is it that distorts and stands in the way of my love? The answer to the question is in our intention. Not all motives, though spiritual, are pure. Often enough they are not even an intention, but an impulse. Some look to compensate for frailty of character, some to gain power, others for an easy way in life. Any such desires, conscious or unconscious are like a weight on our spirit, keeping it from reaching its natural fulfillment.

Cake Making

The spiritual journey is about knowing oneself, a journey toward the “Perfection” of love, harmony and beauty. We could think of the journey as baking a special cake. We constantly are adding new ingredients to the dough we are working on, hoping for perfection, although we know how difficult that can be, as each ingredient changes the total quality of the dough, when put together with a combination of other ingredients, creating a mix unique to itself. Eventually time runs out and the baking must take place whether we are ready or not. The transition into the oven highlights the finality of the process, and the cake is done. For humans it is the time of death, whereby whatever perfection we have attained is absorbed, consumed by the universe, and reinvested in a furthering of universal growth and evolutionary momentum.

I am encouraged by the recent focus of our order to look into finding some way to contribute to the increasingly urgent need of our time. As I am sure many of us are aware, due to the global scope, breadth and depth of this situation, to take on such enormous challenge requires a concerted effort of organizational attention that needs expression both, at the local and global level. If you have been exposed to the teachings of Hazrat Inayat khan you probably know to differentiate between the two, that is to say that to achieve coherence at the global level it makes sense to start at the local level (unless we have some special dispensation that takes us to the global level). My interest and contribution has been, and continues to be, for the last few years, at the local level. By local I mean learning about oneself, one’s attitude, one’s thoughts, and habits that constantly contribute in subtle ways to what becomes the problem.

It is easier to disregard one’s action and reactions to focus on the larger problem, as it eliminates feeling responsible, and provides a sense of heroism in one’s dedication, with instant gratification, a feeling of satisfaction, that involves minimal changes in one’s life routine.

Such is the way of the self-centered dark mind, the lower mind that provides our survival instinctual impulses. When I call it dark I do not mean “evil” I simply using a term that brings attention to our motivations, that compares it to the light mind, which functions on interest other than self, without the ulterior motives that tend to be present in actions that have some subtle element of self-centered interest, the instinctual survival function of the dark mind. It is a tool provided by nature to support us, nature has also provided the means to rise beyond it.

We tend to habitually pay attention to the negative to make sure we continue surviving, which has its place. Now we also need to focus on the positive with some conscious attention, or awareness, to bring a balance that reveals the love, harmony and beauty elements into our actions into our lives.

All of this to say, let’s stay alert in the moment, here and now, and it will take us a long way into solving our global problem, for a better tomorrow.